ELL News Headlines

High school teachers in all classes can help students strengthen their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.

While Colorado is seeing some improvement in reading instruction, some students continue to struggle. As a result, the Colorado Department of Education is seeking $3.3 million in the 2025-26 education budget to create new training for teachers to teach English learners to read. It would be used to help teachers differentiate instruction for those students.

The U.S. Agriculture Department is ending two pandemic-era programs that provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farmers and producers. About $660 million of that went to schools and childcare centers to buy food for meals through the Local Foods for Schools program. A separate program provided money to food banks.

The Trump administration’s dismissal of nearly half the U.S. Department of Education’s staff leaves virtually no division unspared, including the Education Department's office of English language acquisition, known as OELA.

Note: Since the dismissals, a lawsuit has been brought to challenge the U.S. Department of Education's layoffs.

Chalkbeat spoke with half a dozen immigration and legal experts to try to answer some of the most pressing questions around immigration enforcement and schools.

K-12 educators in the United States are still federally required to support English learners’ acquisition of the English language, regardless of any official national language designation. That’s the main takeaway from researchers and former U.S. Department of Education directors in response to the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on March 1, which designates English as the official language of the country. While experts who spoke with Education Week said the executive order won’t immediately affect English-learner programs, they said it could present long-term challenges and opportunities for meeting multilingual students’ needs.

Five years out from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, San Joaquin Valley schools are still recovering from learning losses. The Central Unified School District in west Fresno is trying something new to improve learning outcomes - and it appears to be making significant progress.

Recently, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's elected superintendent of public instruction, pushed forward a proposed rule requiring parents to provide proof of citizenship upon enrolling children in public schools. But Walters' effort hit a snag when a fellow Republican, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, denounced the move as using children as "political pawns," adding that he would stop the rule from taking effect.

In our study, adult English-language learners in southwestern Ontario were encouraged to connect with their community through photography — recording meaningful moments and writing descriptions that explained the personal significance of each image. The photographs served as data. Written reflections served as translations and analysis of the data. The photos and analyses they created (their renderings) served to produce new knowledge.

Using AI became second nature for this educator. A month without the tools gave him an opportunity to pause, reflect, and recalibrate